Rose and Scorpius had never been particularly close, and that was an overstatement. They had probably only spoken to each other once or twice ever since they had started Hogwarts, Rose having taken her father’s word that he would disown her if she ever became friends with ‘the Malfoy boy’, and Scorpius being too shy to talk to anyone outside of his own house (save for Orla, although she did nearly all of the talking anyway).

And so it seemed as bizarre to the pair of them that they sat in the Quidditch changing rooms, Scorpius pouring out all of his woes and Rose actually listening to them without thinking about all of the homework she had left to do.

“Blimey,” Rose whistled, resting her head against the wall, “Has she got something wrong with her?”

“I don’t know,” Scorpius sighed, holding his head in his hands, “And now they’ll be looking for me and I’ll just have to live in here and make a den out of the socks and forage for food-”

Scorpius flushed and looked desperately around for any way of escape. He couldn’t drown himself in the shower, he hated it when water got in his face; he surely couldn’t jump out of the window and expect to survive (even if he was on the ground floor); and he couldn’t run to the exit without Rose beating him there first…

His shoulders fell in defeat and he sighed, “Well. When I say I’m running away from Orla, I didn’t mean just Orla.”

“Who else did you mean?”

“Which one do you want me to start with?”

Rose groaned and rolled her eyes. This was going to be a long night.

*

Orla paced up and down the Great Hall, her eyes constantly glancing back at the entrance and waiting for that beautiful mop of blonde hair to walk through the door. Or in Scorpius’s case, fall through the door.

She glanced down at her watch. He was two minutes and three seconds late; not late enough to get hysterical, but late enough for her to start hyperventilating.

Scorpius was lost. He was lost and all alone in the castle without her and surely she was going to die from the pain and the loss. Oh, how could she live with herself knowing that she was the last person to see him alive and not to warn him about Peeves and the suit of armour he was throwing on top of people?

“Have you seen Scorpius?” She whispered to Anna as she walked through the doors.

“No, why?”

“He hasn’t showed up and we were meant to be meeting here two minutes, fifteen seconds ago.” Orla wrung her hands and Anna laughed.

“Have you asked anyone in his house? Maybe they know where he might be hiding.” She shook her head and gave Orla a shove into the Great Hall. “Go on, I see the Goyle twins are free for a chat.”

The twins in question – Gerta and Helga – were strapping specimens of girls and were each about the size of a baby whale, speaking like them as well. They weren’t exactly the most friendly of twins either, shouting at anyone who came within a five metre radius of their food and regularly sending naïve first and second years to the Hospital Wing with bouts of – as the students of Hogwarts had named it – Goyletwinitus. Needless to say Orla didn’t exactly want to have to resort talking to them if she could help it.

Orla took one last desperate glance around the Entrance Hall and decided she was just going to have to ask every single person in the Great Hall whether or not they had seen him. This was a matter of life or death; of love and romance; of futures gained and futures lost…

“Have you seen Scorpius Malfoy?” She practically dived on the poor first year, gripping onto her shoulder like a hawk and held up a photo she had taken of him and her together back in their fourth year. “Well, have you?!”

The first year ran away in floods of tears - Orla took that as a no. But there was no time to be wasted in comforting the innocent, so she moved on.

Little did she know that her ‘swoop-and-shake’ technique had caught the attention of three-times Wizard Chess champion Sophia Quirke.

*

“Sophia?” Rose shouted, completely taken a back. Scorpius jumped and gripped his chest, trying to slow down his heart.

“Yes, Sophia.”

“But she always seemed so level-headed.” Rose said, patting Scorpius roughly on the back and wondering how in Merlin’s name anyone could find him charming. “Are you sure you’re not using some kind of banned substance on these girls?”

“I assure you,” Scorpius chuckled and pushed his fringe out of his eyes, “the only thing I’ve been using is Auntie Angela’s No-Pain, All-Gain, Sometimes-Stain Throat Lozenges-”

“-fighting the illness imps on your behalf, trust Auntie Angela.” They chorused. Rose rolled her eyes and gave Scorpius a quick nudge.

“Hey, you’ve given me a bruise.”

“Just get on with it, Scorpy.” She winked.

*

Sophia stood up and walked up to the now sobbing Orla.

“What’s wrong, Orla?” Sophia asked, sitting her down and rubbing her back. “Come on, take a deep breath.”

Sophia’s hand stopped moving up and down her back as she realised what this might mean for their plans later on tonight. “Why, I’m sure he can’t have gone far-”

“It’s all my fault!” Orla bawled, burying her face in her hands, “I knew about Peeves and his plan to hurt Scorpy and I never told him and now he’s probably half-dead and crying for me!”

Sophia thought the situation through for a moment, as all good Ravenclaws do, and came to one conclusion: if she was going to meet Scorpius tonight, and she was going to, she needed to find him before Orla muscled in. She would be damned if Orla thought she was going to be seeing Scorpius at all this evening.

“Come on now,” Sophia sat Orla up and handed her a handkerchief, “hope’s not lost. Why don’t you go and have a look in…the library, maybe he got carried away with his homework and has lost track of time?”

Not bloody likely, Orla thought, they always do their homework together and he would never go to the library without her. But it was worth a try, he wasn’t in here and maybe she might spot him on the way to the library (hopefully not lying underneath a suit of armour and sobbing out her name, however romantic that sounded).

“Okay,” she sniffed and made sure to pick up her photo, “Thanks, Soph.”

“It’s Sophia-”

“Yeah, well, I prefer Soph.” Orla said, all of her woe and tears forgotten with Scorpius’s face fresh in her mind and their meeting for tonight back on track. Sophia watched as Orla all but skipped out of the Great Hall and ran in the opposite direction to her and to the place that Orla had accidentally let slip he might be:

The Hospital Wing.

She ran through the school, careful to avoid Peeves and the other students, and took her trusted route to where she would soon be with Scorpius. They weren’t meant to be meeting until eight o’clock in the Transfiguration classroom, so there was no point checking in there just yet if he was lying injured in one of the Hospital beds.

She rounded the corner and jogged through the double doors and where that sex beast would be waiting for her…

But he was nowhere to be seen.

“Madam Pomfrey,” Sophia called, walking over to the elderly matron and smiling, “I heard that Scorpius Malfoy was referred here after running into Peeves earlier on. Do you have any idea where he might be?”

“Scorpius Malfoy?” Madam Pomfrey asked, raising her eyebrows, “No, I’m afraid he’s not here and he hasn’t been since last week with that unfortunate incident with the Moly plant. I’m sorry.”

Disheartened, Sophia waited in the middle of the Hospital Wing for inspiration to strike her, unbeknownst to her that her chat with the matron wasn’t as secret as she had thought.

*

“There’s another girl after you?”

“I did say ‘they’.” Scorpius gave her a shifty smile and shoved another lozenge – sour strawberry – into his mouth.

“You’re like catnip to them, aren’t you?”

*

Tracy Wood, newly made captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, crouched as still as she could, listening to Sophia mutter under her breath about where Scorpius might be. Her friend Tom Worthington had been knocked cold during today’s Quidditch practise and she had just carried him up the stairs single-handedly when Sophia had burst through the doors and she had ducked underneath Tom’s bed.

Scorpius Malfoy? Injured? That couldn’t be. She had planned to meet him later down by the Quidditch pitch to, as she so delicately put it, “go over a few new moves I’ve been working on”. Surely such a strong, strapping young Quidditch star like Scorpius couldn’t get himself injured at such a crucial time?

Well, there was only one way to find out.

“Tracy?” Tom moaned, rubbing his head and attempting to sit up. “What happened? Why is my head pounding?”

“Ow!” Tom shifted in his bed, “Trace, could you get me some water? I think I’m going to be sick.”

But she had already gone. Yet another girl was hot on the trail of Scorpius Malfoy, but Tracy knew where she was going to find him. If he was anything like Tracy had imagined – and she had imagined a lot – Scorpius would be in the Slytherin common room pruning the new Butterfly Beast broomstick his father had bought for him last year.

She ran along the corridor just as Orla came hurtling out from one of the Potions dungeons and Sophia came running down from the first floor. Tracy eyed up the two other girls running towards the only Slytherin in the whole corridor, but with her Quidditch skills and self-proclaimed allure, she managed to stop the third-year just as he opened the door.

“Hi,” she said, grinning and placing one hand on the door to stop him going in, “I’m looking for Scorpius Malfoy, is he in-”

“What do you mean, ‘I’m looking for Scorpius Malfoy’?” Orla said, coming to a stop behind Tracy and with her hands on her hips, “I’m the one looking for Scorpy!”

“Scorpy?” Sophia snorted as she jogged up next to the girls, “If anyone’s looking for ‘Scorpy’ then it’s me. We were planning to meet tonight.”

“So was I!” Tracy and Orla shouted, turning to face Sophia, the third-year totally forgotten but unable to get inside his own common room.

“But he’s meeting me!” All of the girls said, each of them glaring and trying to come to terms with what was happening.

If it was what they were thinking, then Scorpius had planned to meet them all tonight; and by the looks of it, he wasn’t going to show to any of the little rendezvous. The realisation seemed to hit the girls all at the same time.

“That little git.”

Another story-wide disclaimer: I must give the most hearty thanks to William Shakespeare for inspiring the title and summary.

Coming soon: Orla obsessed, Scorpius scared and Rose resigned.

A/N: Thank you to everyone who's been reviewing and reading! It's really great to hear what you think, so don't stop telling me! Another thank you to Julia for the help and the graphics; she is truly wonderful.